


Protection

by mylordshesacactus



Category: RWBY
Genre: Collars, Communication, F/F, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Kink Negotiation, Massage, Non-Sexual Submission
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:27:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28179822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mylordshesacactus/pseuds/mylordshesacactus
Summary: “You’re psychoanalyzing me!”“Am not,” protested Fiona.“You are! I can see you doing it!”Fiona’s ears drooped guiltily. “I mean...maybe just a little…”May dropped her head into her hands.“It’s not—I’m not asking you to treat me...ugh. I hate communication.”
Relationships: Joanna Greenleaf/May Marigold, Joanna Greenleaf/Robyn Hill/May Marigold/Fiona Thyme, May Marigold/Fiona Thyme, Robyn Hill/May Marigold
Comments: 26
Kudos: 185





	Protection

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kablob](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kablob/gifts).



> Merry Transmas everyone! 
> 
> I was actually going to save this to drop on like, Christmas Eve or something, but you know what, we're celebrating today so here it is: May Marigold Getting Nice Things.

Robyn’s eyebrows lifted by reflex.

It was a mild expression; surprise, not judgement. May still winced, and Joanna reached for her only to pull her hand back at the last minute.

“It’s not—” May visibly bit her tongue, looking annoyed with herself. But she wrung her hands, hard enough to raise visible white marks, and Robyn’s eyes tightened with concern. Before she could move, May managed to speak again. “Whatever you’re worrying about, it’s not  _ like  _ that, all right?”

“All right,” said Robyn, as kindly as she could. May groaned.

“You’re psychoanalyzing me!”

“Am not,” protested Fiona.

“You  _ are! _ I can see you doing it!”

Fiona’s ears drooped guiltily. “I mean...maybe just a  _ little _ …”

May dropped her head into her hands.

“It’s not—I’m not asking you to treat me...ugh. I  _ hate  _ communication.”

Robyn couldn’t fight off the way her lips twitched. “It’s the cornerstone of any healthy—”

“I will  _ cut  _ you.”

“That’s  _ definitely  _ not a cornerstone of healthy relationships,” Fiona said helpfully.

Joanna laughed softly. “Come on,” she said, the steady warmth in her voice drawing a flushed May back out into the world. “We’re listening. No judgement. I mean, it’s not really my _ thing, _ but...if you want to try it…”

“It…” May made another face. “It needs to be Robyn, it’s...complicated. It’s not that I’m not  _ comfortable  _ with you, it’s just—” 

Robyn raised two fingers.

“I’m not sure  _ I’m _ comfortable with it,” she said, trying to keep it from sounding like a rejection. “I understand the appeal, but it may  _ need  _ to be you and Joanna.”

“Or me,” said Fiona.

“Or Fiona.”

“It’s  _ really  _ hot, actually,” continued Fiona. “I mean, normally it’d freak me out, but...it’s May, you know?”

“Thanks.”

Fiona winced. “Okay! Okay. Not what I meant. It’s—look, faunus and humans and...that kind of stuff...it’s not that I don’t trust you guys! It’s just—”

“It doesn’t mix,” said Joanna kindly, sliding an arm around Fiona’s waist and giving her a soft squeeze.

“Yeah, you know, there’s… weird implications.” Fiona glanced around, still anxious. “Even the other way around, there’s just a lot of baggage. And I’m kind of an  _ expert  _ on carrying invisible baggage, actually. But it’s different if it’s May.”

Robyn looked between them, interested. “Shared trauma?”

Fiona laughed.

“Reparations,” May corrected with a wry smile, and Fiona pointed finger guns in her direction. “It really isn’t like that, though.”

“Aww.” Fiona gave an exaggerated pout.  _ “Fine.” _

Robyn couldn’t help but feel she’d lost control of this conversation somewhat.

“What  _ is _ it like, May?” she asked, sitting forward and resting soft elbows on her knees. “If this was important enough to arrange a team meeting just to ask for it, then I’m listening. And I’m not going to judge you for telling us what you need. I understand why... _ degradation, _ can be cathartic to a lot of people. But  _ I’m  _ not comfortable treating you badly on purpose. Even if we both know it’s not real. That isn’t something I can do.”

“I’m not  _ asking  _ you to,” May insisted. She rolled up one sleeve, and held out her hand. “I mean that. I can prove it.” 

Robyn pulled her own hands closer to her body, a reflex as strong as if May had swing a fireplace poker at her fingers.

“If I needed  _ proof  _ you were telling the truth about something like this,” she said quietly, “we would have bigger problems to deal with. I believe you.”

“It’s not…” She rubbed her face again, and alarm spiked up Robyn’s spine when she saw how badly her lover’s fingers were shaking.

“Easy,” murmured Joanna.

May gave her head a sharp, abrupt shake.

“I don’t want you to...yank me around and call me names, or whatever you’re thinking, Robyn. I want…” She clenched and unclenched her hands. “I want—I got a call from my  _ father  _ last week!” she finally blurted.

Robyn sat bolt upright. “You  _ what?” _

May was nearly quivering; she looked as if she would be pacing around the room if she hadn’t been the one to sit them all down around the shitty coffee table in the first place. “My scroll isn’t even _ listed, _ he shouldn’t have been able to get the number! Somehow  _ he  _ can find me, we  _ know _ the fucking  _ military  _ knows where we are—Robyn, just for a few hours I need you to say that I’m _ yours _ and that nobody can—take me away—”

“Come here,” Robyn interrupted in a murmur, as much an order as anything she’d ever barked in the field. Almost before the words left her lips May had obeyed them, rounding the coffee table at the speed of thought and letting herself be drawn close against Robyn’s left side.

“Oh,  _ May,” _ whispered Fiona.

“I’m fine,” she ground out.

“Sure.” Joanna rested an arm on the back of the ratty sofa, radiating concern, leaning around Robyn and Fiona to get a better look at May’s face. “Do you want to shake Robyn’s hand and repeat that?”

“No,” said Robyn, soft but firm. “It’s all right, May.” She carded idle fingers through Fiona’s hair while she thought. “And it has to be me because…?”

“You outrank us.” It was actually Fiona who answered, matter-of-factly, watching May with warm understanding. “We answer to you, right?”

“Only in the field,” Robyn protested; but she nodded, slowly, considering. “If what you want is security…”

“Protection.” Joanna finally got up to move to Robyn’s other side, where she could run a reassuring hand along May’s back. “The idea is nice, and she knows we’d take care of her; but it means less if there’s a higher authority.”

Fiona looked up. “Yeah,” she said, with a cheeky flick of her ears and a hint of a smirk.  _ “You  _ don’t take orders from  _ anyone.” _

May made a low, irritable sound deep in her throat. Robyn took this to mean that their analysis was annoyingly correct.

“Can we all just pretend this never happened?” asked May, voice muffled against Robyn’s chest. “Seriously. Please. Forget I said anything.”

Robyn, after tugging on Fiona’s ear in retaliation for her attitude, gave May’s fingers a gentle squeeze. After a moment, she nodded to herself. 

“I can’t make any promises, Princess. But I’ll think about it.”

* * *

“I don’t know, May,” said Joanna, as Fiona finally produced the last of their grocery bags from her Semblance. “I’m not sure we’ve got enough  _ cheese.” _

_ “You _ can criticize my taste in cheese spreads when you start making your own,” May shot back, aggressively cheerful. Joanna, their rock in the storm, the heart and soul of the team, bastion of steadiness and steadfast voice of reason, stuck her tongue out in response.

Fiona, who’d torn through the paper bags in record time, looked up hopefully. “You’re gonna make more onion soup?”

Well,  _ clearly  _ May needed to introduce some new recipes if she was getting this predictable just from her ingredient lists. She groaned and cracked her spine.

“Not tonight, lambchop,” she said regretfully. “Once we get these put away I have so much paperwork I haven’t been able to get to. Too many Grimm this week.”

“Yeah.” Fiona made a face. “I was there.”

“I’ll probably just heat up what’s left of the dumplings, if none of you want them.” May tried to hide how much she was dreading the next few nights. “Make some tea, set up in the office.”

The ‘office’ was a walk-in closet containing a water heater and a tiny desk; but it was the only space where she knew for a fact she wouldn’t be keeping the others awake.

“Counteroffer,” said Robyn casually.

May shook her head irritably. “I  _ know  _ you hate all-nighters,” she didn’t quite snap. “I didn’t plan it this way, but it’s where we are. I won’t be able to sleep until it’s done anyway, so just let me have a bad few nights in exchange for being able to rest properly afterward.”

Robyn shrugged. Suspicious. She never gave in this easily.

“Your choice,” she said. “I just thought you might be able to delay it for one more night. I had a plan, but it’s not time-sensitive.”

If her plan was ‘sleeping,’ May was legally allowed to kill her, probably.

_ “Fine.” _ May crossed her arms. “Enlighten me. What  _ exactly  _ are you—”

Robyn took a hand out of her pocket, and May’s words died on her tongue.

Without a word, Robyn carefully folded the doeskin collar between May’s hands.

It was a simple, broad strip of undyed leather, no frills or fancy detailing; but it was soft as butter under May’s touch, smooth and delicate. There was no...she felt heat rising slightly in her cheeks at the thought. There were no... _ tags, _ or anything like it; just a copper loop set into the center, sewn in firmly between two layers, parallel to the leather so that it would lay flat against the wearer’s throat. 

Carved directly into the leather over that ring was the only mark of ownership—Robyn’s sigil, artistically blackened to stand out against the leather. An intrinsic part of the band itself. Nothing that could be removed...or replaced. Not without removing the collar entirely.

Swallowing hard past the lump in her throat, May ran a thumb over the simple detail work on both sides of the rising falcon. Nothing overly fancy; an embossed floral pattern, symmetrical along the band. 

Just flavor, on first glance. Probably Robyn’s idea of a joke; she’d have recognized the cluster of flowers in the center of the pattern.  _ Marigolds, _ naturally, framed with sprigs of greenery and—and flowering thyme—

Spring marigolds, cradled protectively between thyme blooms and leafy greenery. Sheltered in the center.

“You made her cry, Robyn,” observed Joanna.

“Shut up,” May choked. Too late; Joanna had already come up behind her and pulled her in for a brief, warm hug. She pressed a kiss to May’s forehead and then gave her some space.

“There are two keys,” Robyn said quietly, as May finally turned the collar over in her hands and thumbed the brass locking mechanism that took the place of a buckle. Somehow, these sweet, beautiful  _ assholes  _ had sized her for this without her noticing. Robyn held up a tiny brass key on a chain before tucking it back under her shirt. “I have one. I want you to hold the other.”

Fiona appeared at her elbow, holding the key’s twin. May slipped it into her pocket with fingers that  _ definitely  _ didn’t tremble.

So the  _ only  _ person who could remove the Happy Huntress sigil from around her neck once it was locked would be Robyn—unless May needed to take it off herself. 

_ Very subtle. Not symbolic at all. _

Gods damn the woman she was such a _ politician— _

“Do you want to wear it?” asked Robyn mildly, while Fiona hovered between them with her ears twitching excitedly. May nodded. “Do you want to put it on, or should I?”

The answer was extremely obvious, and May had handed the strip of leather back before she’d fully registered the question. When Robyn smirked slightly and moved to brush May’s hair out of the way, however, she took a reflexive step back.

“I—wait,” she stammered. Robyn dropped her hands immediately, and May rolled her eyes. “For  _ fuck’s sake, _ Robyn, there’s nothing wrong, that’s not—I should change.” She gestured at her field gear pointedly. “I want to...do this right. Give me twenty minutes.”

Robyn’s response was...not the insufferably soft smile and gentle permission May had been expecting. Instead, she slipped the collar back into her pocket and exchanged a long, inscrutable look with Joanna.

May looked between them. “What?”

Robyn looked at her with that too-knowing expression, lavender eyes soft and serious. “Take all the time you need, May,” she said, voice kind and carefully even. “Take a shower, collect yourself, get in...the right mindset. But I want you back here in street clothes, or we’re not doing this tonight. No lingerie, no...uniforms.”

“You never let me have any fun,” May muttered, expecting Fiona to back her up. To her shock, Fiona looked just as solemn as Robyn about this.

That...threw her for a loop. Before she could overthink it, Robyn reached out and took May’s chin between her fingers, gently turning her face back.

“You’ve spent your whole life with  _ someone  _ in Atlas thinking of you as their escaped property,” she said, brutally honest but unspeakably gentle with it, turning what should have been a knife blade into a caress. “Sometimes you need to let go of your baggage and identity and the responsibilities that come with them, I get that. Sometimes you need to throw everything you have into serving others and not have to worry about anything beyond them; I understand that too.” 

She lifted May’s chin, waiting until she made eye contact, then gave a soft smile. 

“But if this is about  _ belonging  _ and not degradation—if what you really need is to be  _ mine?  _ I won’t settle for less than all of you.”

May’s eyelids fluttered in time with the slow drag of Robyn’s thumb along her jaw.

“Do you still need some time?” Robyn murmured.

Letting out a long breath, May shook her head in a daze. Robyn laughed under her breath.

May let herself be guided forward, into the cramped living room; she managed not to bang her shin off the shitty coffee table despite how stumbling and half-drunk her steps suddenly felt. When Robyn drew out the collar again, May pulled her ponytail off her neck and closed her eyes.

After a moment, voice tender, Robyn prompted her: “You should probably kneel for this.”

Equal parts grateful and disappointed that Robyn couldn’t see the way those words made her heart stutter in her chest, the electric shiver it sent racing along her spine, May folded to her knees.

“Good  _ girl.” _

May didn’t even have time to be embarrassed by her own unrestrained gasping whimper; Robyn had, wasting no time, fastened the collar around her throat and turned the lock. And—

Everything went  _ black. _ Instantly. In a good way. In a  _ very good _ way.

She understood now why Robyn, who didn’t usually get off on these kinds of power trips, had made her kneel first. If May had been standing when that lock slid home, she would have  _ collapsed. _ The sense of relief was that intense. All of her joints had gone limp, her bones felt like jelly; there was a faint pulsing in her ears, the near-silent pounding of her own heart and nothing else, her eyes had fallen closed and she didn’t know when.

And it was  _ quiet,  _ suddenly. For the first time she could  _ remember— _

It was like Robyn had flipped a switch. All of the whirring gears and rapid page-flipping, the frantic pencil-scratch of anxiety in the back her mind that had been with her for as long as she’d been alive...the hum of bad memories, the loud shuddering breath of fear, the howling loneliness, even the angle-grinder shriek of _ fury,  _ were just... _ gone.  _

Silenced with nothing more than the faint click of a cheap brass lock.

She wasn’t sure how long it took for the faint rasping of fingers through her hair to penetrate the cloak of perfect quiet. Robyn was unwrapping her hair for her.

“Would you look at that,” she said with a smile as May opened bleary eyes to peer up at her. “She lives! Coming up for air?”

“Nnng,” May managed. She also managed an eyeroll. She was blissfully happy, not dead.

Robyn brushed a strand of hair out of her face, so tender it ached.

“Come here,” she said, pulling May into a slightly better position; kneeling in front of the couch at Robyn’s feet, head resting half in her lap, fingers playing slowly through her hair. She felt her eyes drift closed again and had no reason to fight it.

“Coulda had me doing this in a maid uniform,” she mumbled. “Your loss.”

Robyn laughed quietly; but when she spoke, her voice—while warm—was completely earnest.

“Not this time.” Slim fingers brushed along the lines of May’s collar, tracing the outline of the copper ring—gentle, but with the callouses of an archer from the many years before Robyn Hill could afford a custom Huntress’ weapon. “Protection, May. Not ownership. We love you as you are. No one will hurt you while we’re alive.  _ None  _ of that is contingent on how much of yourself you give away, or cut yourself off from, to make other people happy.”

When May could speak again—

No, that was overly optimistic. When May could  _ breathe  _ again, which still took a while, she managed to get out, “Gods, shut up…”

She didn’t have to open her eyes; she could feel Robyn quirking an eyebrow at her.

“I don’t think  _ you’re  _ giving orders tonight, princess.”

“So there,” added Fiona, who May hadn’t even noticed joining them. An impossibly light, sweet kiss was brushed against her cheek—with the faint tickle of happy, forward-pricked sheep’s ears—and the couch creaked as Fiona got up and danced away.

“You’re enjoying this,” said Joanna, a smile in her voice. May concluded that she was probably talking to Robyn, since Joanna wasn’t generally inclined toward stating the obvious.

“It’s nice to see her relax for once,” Robyn agreed, as if May wasn’t there.

That was fine. Mentally, May  _ was  _ floating vaguely in the comfortably warm depths of empty space.

“Mmmhmm.” Joanna squeezed May’s shoulder affectionately, earning a half-pained moan, and stopped. “You...oh, Princess. Don’t move.”

The coffee table was audibly pushed back, and she felt Joanna pull up the armchair and settle behind her before the heel of her hand pressed firmly down over her shoulderblade.

_ “Ow.” _

“Sorry,” murmured Joanna. “This is just...all knot.”

“Is it possible you’ve been carrying some tension?” asked Robyn innocently, flipping over a piece of paper resting next to her on a lap desk. 

“Just a little,” said Joanna, squeezing a band of impossibly tense muscle in a way that made May’s breath hitch in pain. “No wonder you can’t relax. This is gonna take a while.”

“Are you comfortable?” asked Robyn, pausing her idle petting until May made a vague noise of affirmation. 

May tried to relax and make Joanna’s job easier. There were several minutes of silence as her sore muscles were slowly, as painlessly as possible, bullied into something more similar to what the hell they were meant to look like. The quiet was broken only by vague rustling noises and dull clinking from the kitchen. Finally, May’s endorphin-addled brain put together that someone was probably putting away the groceries.

This, the tiny fraction of her brain that was still conscious protested, obviously could not stand.

“I can help…” she half-slurred.

Robyn caught her before she could sit up; a gentle hand, cupped around the back of May’s neck, thumb massaging another knot of tight muscle.

“I know you can,” she said simply, guiding May’s head back down against her thigh. “But I like you where you are.”

Well.

May, melting fuzzily into her touch, couldn’t argue with that. Nothing else seemed to matter right now.

Joanna’s hands kept up a slow, steady give-and-take over May’s shoulders, then down the shoulder blades and along her spine. May wasn’t certain whether or not she dozed off, honestly.

“...sure you don’t need anything?”

Fiona’s voice eventually filtered down into May’s consciousness, with Joanna’s soft smile audible as she replied, “Nah. I’m all right, Fi.”

“Joanna,” said Robyn mildly, fingers toying with the soft tuft of hair behind May’s left ear.

A chuckle. “What?”

“You deserve nice things, too,” said Fiona, soft and sweet and earnest. “I was  _ going  _ to do May’s hair for her while the water’s boiling, but your shoulders are almost as bad as hers are!”

“Well,” said Robyn without missing a beat.  _ “That’s _ a condemnation if I’ve ever heard one.”

_ “Ha ha,” _ muttered May into the pillow of her own arms, eyes still closed, cheek still resting against Robyn’s thigh.

“Poor May,” said Fiona, somehow managing to sound sincere.

“She gets no respect in this house,” agreed Joanna, who did not manage it at all. 

“Mmm,” agreed Robyn, before sighing and setting aside a stack of papers with an audible thump. “Well, I have no idea what  _ accelerated depreciation _ is, so unfortunately, she’s still doing our taxes this year.”

May’s head snapped up. “You were trying to do our  _ taxes?!  _ Robyn, the Marigold family business is just _ tax fraud,  _ why would—”

Robyn silenced her with a pointed twitch of one eyebrow, but smiled. “I was just  _ looking,  _ Princess. I didn’t touch anything. Not every piece of paperwork that crosses the threshold has to be your responsibility, you know.”

“Oh, here we go,” sighed Fiona, slipping out of Joanna’s lap and wisely leaving for the kitchen.

“I—it’s just what I’m good at, Robyn.” May finally took proper notice of the stacks of paperwork that had been split between the three of them. “Are...those applications for…?”

“Next season’s apartment complex,” Robyn confirmed. Then, gesturing between the piles: “Liability insurance policy comparisons; board listings; minutes from the Mantle city council, miners’ union, transport truckers’ union, teacher’s union, and Sector Twelve tenants’ union meetings for the past three months to summarize; printouts of the most recent perimeter rebuilding numbers from the Atlas government.”

Joanna waved with an orange highlighter.

“I can…” May didn’t bother finishing the protest. She’d been planning to finish most of that tonight, she could have caught up, they didn’t have to… “I didn’t realize I’d fallen this far behind. I’m...”

_ “Don’t you dare!” _ shouted Fiona from the kitchen.

May—

Breathed deep, and deliberately relaxed her shoulders again before she ruined all of Joanna’s hard work.

And gave in. 

“What do you say,” Joanna prompted.

May sighed.  _ “Thank _ you. All of you.”

_ “There _ we go.” Joanna gave a fond smile and got back to work. “This is what happens when you spend all your time trying to make other people’s lives better, you know. They end up caring about you and wanting you to be happy.”

“Well,  _ that’ll _ teach me,” muttered May.

“That’s what you get,” Robyn agreed. “Let this be a lesson. The next time you come to us telling us you’re overwhelmed and scared and need to be taken care of for a night, if you’re not careful we’ll end up showing you how much you mean to us and making sure you feel loved and valued as a vital part of this family.”

_ “And _ making you tea,” added Fiona, making her way carefully into the living room with a dangerously over-full mug of steaming tea. “Serves you right.”

“Better watch yourself,” said Joanna, eyes twinkling.

May, unable to keep from smiling like a complete idiot, shifted slightly to free up her hands as she accepted the mug from Fiona. It  _ was  _ probably about time she got her head back on straight; she didn’t really  _ want  _ the jolt of alertness that would come the instant her favorite high-caffeine Atlesian tea blend hit her bloodstream, but she’d spent too much time in a half-conscious daze already. 

There was too much work to be done, and she was grateful to Fiona for framing her ‘out’ this way. As an act of love and a gift from a woman she loved, and not an obligation she had to force herself back to. It would let the soft edges linger just a bit longer, even after the...caffeine…

She blinked, slow and stupid, into the steaming mug.

“This is…” She took a sip. “Is this...chamomile?”

Robyn’s fingers combed through her hair. Reassurance, not a command; tempting, but not pulling, May’s head to the side, to rest back against Robyn’s knee and enjoy her tea there. To soften again, close her eyes, let herself relax. To feel safe for just a little bit longer.

“Is that a problem?” she asked. It was soft, a bit amused; but it was a real question.

Gods, there was so much to do—

The warm, rough pad of Robyn’s finger traced the edge of May’s collar. She had a bronze key in her pocket, if...if she  _ really  _ wanted to go back to work right now, if she appreciated Robyn’s game but was done playing, she could always…

Without her input, her exhausted body had already melted into Robyn’s touch. Fiona cooed slightly, and May smiled over the rim of her mug as she took a sip and settled back against the couch.

“...No,” she murmured. “No, ma’am.”

**Author's Note:**

> Alex isn't a coauthor on this one because she physically couldn't handle being in the doc. She tried once and she just dissolved into a puddle of gay trans emotions and told me that I was fantastic and also to go fuck myself.


End file.
